Red Sparrow is a 2018 spy-thriller film directed by Francis Lawrence who worked with Jennifer Lawrence (the star here) on a couple of the Hunger Games movies, but this is a very different beast. Jennifer Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova (in, it has to be said, a not entirely convincing Russian accent), and Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenarts and Charlotte Rampling star as the film's secondary characters. This one is a pretty big departure from what Lawrence has done in the past, although it has to be said that she's making some pretty bold career choices. I'm not the first one to say that, and for a good reason: it's true. After last year's Mother! it appeared as if she was trying purposefully trying to appear in more "mature" films, and believe me, it doesn't get much more mature than Red Sparrow. The film plays out like one of those schlocky exploitation from the seventies, in that there's sexual violence, sex, violence, torture, and all manner o
Thor Ragnarok is a 2017 superhero film, and the latest instalment in the Marvel cinematic universe/the Thor franchise. This one takes place directly after Thor: The Dark World, and tells the story of Hela (Cate Blanchett) and her efforts, as the Goddess of death, to take over Asgard and rule the galaxy. So of course, Thor has to get to Asgard and save the kingdom from her wrath.
In the past, I've had a bit of a love/hate relationship with both the Marvel and DC films. Very few of them are actually bad films in their own right, but none of them stand out either. It's as if there's a machine that churns out a film every couple of years according to a formula, which then gets chucked onto our cinema screens with the chance that it'll make a ton of money. My main problem is that the formula (a bad guy wants to destroy the world, superheroes tell some jokes and then defeat him/her) is incredibly stale, so I'm pretty glad to say that Taika Waititi decided to change things up a little.
This film is pretty tongue-in-cheek in comparison to the other Marvel films, and actually feels sort of like a parody of the superhero genre. There's very little fighting, and the first hour or so is actually quite dialogue heavy and has a lot of unexpected character development. What's better, some of the jokes in this film are surprisingly funny too - also rare for a Marvel film. On top of that, this is one of the shortest Marvel films at two hours and ten minutes, another welcome change made by the film-makers. If there's anything these films need, it's a shorter running time and a sense of lightheartedness. Unfortunately, that's where the good aspects end.
I don't know what happened, but after around an hour and twenty minutes, Thor: Ragnarok does enter much more familiar territory. I find it hard to believe, at this point, that fans of the Marvel cinematic universe want to see the same story repeated ad infinitum to the point where it becomes so familiar you could describe exactly what's going to happen in every scene. As soon as Thor begins to make his way back to Asgard, I started to become bored and restless with the film, and honestly I just wanted it to end. The action just gets bigger and dumber, the story more predictable and uninteresting. The dialogue becomes a lot cheesier too.
There is half a good film here, and I hope Taika Waititi is in charge of the next Thor film, too. There is a real sense that he was in charge a lot of the production process, and the bits which seemed to be influenced by him were incredibly entertaining and witty. Unfortunately, the second half dwindles into a pretty dull CGI-laden fight fest, and Thor: Ragnarok suffers quite a bit because of it. In the end, this film will probably satisfy fans up until a certain, but will end up leaving them feeling cold.
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